Unfortunate Mannerisms
by Hauptmann Holmes
Summary: Based of the Granada series. Have you ever noticed how Holmes touches things to his mouth when he is thinking? Watson's POV. K plus, just in case.


**Unfortunate Mannerisms  
**_A Sherlock Holmes Fanfiction  
_By Lennon Drop of

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle does.

**Author's Note: **This idea came to me a while ago; I decided to act on it. This is my first Sherlock Holmes fanfiction, so please leave some constructive criticism for me! _Lennon Drop_

**Here it begins:**

"Watson, I believe that our victim was murdered by a poisonous mushroom," my friend and colleague Sherlock Holmes sprinted across the road to a small ditch.

I limped after him, my wound was troubling me. "But, Holmes, all of the evidence points to a knife wound!"

"Yes, but did you not notice that the knife wound was superficial and not fatal?"

I searched through my memories of the body that Holmes and I had viewed that morning. The knife wound was a slash about a foot long and a few centimeters deep. "I do remember. But what does that have to do with mushrooms?"

Holmes stopped short. "Dear, dear, Watson, did you not notice the unusual hue of our victim?"

I again consulted my memories. "I did notice that Lord Ash had a slightly green hue... But I did not think anything amiss at the time."

Holmes straightened from where he had been bending, looking for mushrooms. "Blast! there are not any mushrooms in this ditch!"

With that he exited the ditch and ran off to the next. I followed at a slower pace. "Holmes, who would have any motive for poisoning Lord Ash? He was the kindest man I have ever met!"

"Ah, Watson, all men, however kind, have enemies. It is a fact," he jumped into another ditch.

"So what you are saying, is, that someone poisoned a knife and stabbed Lord Ash with it? Would it have not been easier to simply poison his food?"

"Easier, yes, but it would also poison anyone else who ate the same food," Holmes bent again. "Say... Lady Ash."

"What motive would Lady Ash have for killing her husband," I was completely abashed. Lord and Lady Ash were two of the most loving people I had ever met! Was it truly possible that Lady Ash could have killed her husband?

Holmes straightened. "Have you not read the papers? Lady Ash has been seen recently with another man!"

"I would have never thought that you were one to read the gossip columns, Holmes," he was now out of my sight, probably on his stomach in the ditch.

"I am not one to read the gossip columns, Watson. At least not for entertainment. I read them to see who attended what dinner where. It is most useful when trying to establish alibis. Lady Ash has been at twelve dinner parties with Captain Henry Mission; that, if not the fact that they walked together after all twelve of the dinner parties, suggests a connection to me," he suddenly popped up out of the end of the roadside ditch. "Nothing!"

"Why must the poison have been in the form of a mushroom?" I asked, wanting to know what was so clearly evident to my companion.

"Because, Watson, a poisonous mushroom is one of the only poisons that you can get by simply picking it by the side of the road. In other words, it would be untraceable, whereas, if you were to buy a poison, someone else is bound to find out."

I nodded, seeing the sense in his words. "But why are we searching ditches on the road outside of Lord Ash's house?"

"Because we need to find the murder weapon," he immediately raise from the ditch with an insignificant-looking mushroom. "Here is our killer!"

I watched in horror as my friend paused to think. He was so immersed in his thoughts that he did not realize what he had in his hand; and, to my horror, Sherlock Holmes pressed the deadly mushroom to his lips.

I must have turned pale, because Holmes looked oddly at me and said, "What the duce is the matter with you, Watson? You look as if you have seen a ghost!"

"You touched the mushroom to your lips," I -- though I am ashamed to admit it -- squeaked.

"Why ever does that..." he trailed off in mid-sentence. "Blast!"

**THREE **hours later we were at the best hospital in London. We had made it there in record time and a worried doctor had given Holmes the antidote to the deadly mushroom.

"Will he be all right, doctor," I asked for the tenth time.

Doctor Burgess sighed. "Yes, Dr. Watson, you should know that, being a medical man yourself!"

"I know, it makes me feel better to hear it out of the mouth of an expert, Dr. Burgess."

"Thank you, Dr. Watson, but, there is a good chance that the poison never even entered his body."

I was taken aback, surely the poison had entered Holmes' body through his lips! "What do you mean?"

"The poison from that particular mushroom is not in the cap, but the stalk. From what I heard of your account, Mr. Holmes only touched the cap to his lips, not the stalk. We just gave him the antidote as a precaution!"

I sighed deeply. You never knew what was going to happen when you were a friend of Sherlock Holmes.

**NOTE:** It was later found that Lady Ash _had _been seeing Captain Mission secretly; and that she did, indeed, poison her loving husband of fifteen years, Lord Ash. She was later hung for her crimes and Captain Mission was sentenced to ten years in prison.


End file.
